TASTE of AUSTRALIA Contents 4 INTRODUCTION 68 NORTH BY NORTH-WEST A round-up of the best eating 5 WELCOME TO to be found in the tropical AUSTRALIA Top End and Broome. 6 THE DISHES THAT 72 TEN WONDERFUL DEFINE AUSTRALIAN WINERY CELLAR DINING NOW DOOR EXPERIENCES The dishes making waves around Australia’s cellar doors offer the country right now, from the something for every wine lover. fine-diner to the café and back again. Here’s a handful of the best. 26 THE FLAVOUR OF SYDNEY 80 COAST TO COAST The Sydney restaurant scene has Australia offers some amazing never been more fertile. Here’s regional food experiences. Here a snapshot of the most notable are some of our favourites – from recent openings. vineyard to tropical beach. 36 CAFÉS FOR DAYS 88 RUNNING LATE For straight up caffeination and Burn the midnight oil at Melbourne’s smashing sustenance, too, nowhere best late-night bars and diners. rivals the cafés of Australia’s capitals. 42 CLASS ACTS Our pick of the finest dining Australia has to offer. 64 THE SEAFOOD OF AUSTRALIA A quick guide to the tastiest of Australian marine life – and where to enjoy it. COVER Attica’s whipped emu egg and sugarbag (page 21). Photography Colin Page Introduction Welcome to Australia taking it too seriously (but taking as much Hello world. We hope you brought an Australia is a place that excels at many things and that includes pleasure in the moment as you can), and appetite because there’s lot to see and plenty food and wine. So it’s not surprising that the honour of hosting about sharing it with friends. And if it can of good stuff we’d like you to taste. The World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2017 has been bestowed on be done outside, preferably near a body of Dining in Australia has never been more the country. It’s a testament to our people, produce and place that water (and, better yet, without shoes), then dynamic, and whether you’ve come from the together they create an exceptional food and wine scene not found all the better. other side of the world for your first visit, anywhere else in the world. What you’ll find in these pages is just or you’re just crossing town to get to know We’re lucky to live in a country where sunshine, clean air and a the beginning. Join us in this exploration a corner of your own neighbourhood in a bit vast landscape deliver a rich array of fresh produce that underpins of Australian flavour: we hope you’ll be back more detail, there’s never been a better time our world-class culinary offering. Not to mention a spectacular for seconds. to be a gourmet traveller on these shores. backdrop to match. It’s not hard to eat well in Australia today We’re fortunate to also have so many talented individuals in Happy dining, (and it’s even easier to find a good coffee or Australia, from farmers and fishermen to providores, artisans, cooks, chefs and winemakers something else interesting to who love our produce and nurture our industry. Pat Nourse drink), but there’s wisdom in the idea that And we’re spoilt to live in a country that brings together so many different cuisines, Managing Editor knowledge enhances pleasure, so in these shared by people of diverse nationalities who have chosen to make Australia their home. Australian Gourmet Traveller pages we’ve gathered together some of the Complementing the multicultural flavours are the bush ingredients that have long been most exciting and fun dining experiences used by Indigenous Australians but, in more recent times, have become incorporated the Gourmet Traveller team has enjoyed into contemporary dishes. around the country of late. These attributes are what we are encouraging others to experience for themselves as part What’s the taste of Australia exactly? It’s of our Restaurant Australia campaign, which we launched in 2014. It’s all about shining not always easy to pin down, yet you know an international light on Australia’s food and wine. it when you see it. It’s about making it look Inside this booklet you will get a taste of the very best Australia has to offer, and easy (especially when it’s not), about not I encourage you to explore beyond these pages and immerse yourself in the food and wine experiences we are so very proud of. Please join us in celebrating Australia’s oustanding food and wine culture. We look forward to welcoming you to Restaurant Australia. John O’Sullivan Managing Director Tourism Australia 5 EIGHT-HOUR LAMB SHOULDER, CUMULUS INC It’s so simple: whole lamb shoulder The dishes that define cooked low and slow until it’s magicked into a crust of dark gold and the meat Australian dining now surrenders on favourable terms. Consider What are the flavours that will take Australia into the next half-century? it less of a dish, more of a patriotic duty. Here are the dishes making waves right now around the country, from Cumulus Inc, 45 Flinders La, Melbourne, the fine-diner to the café and back again, plus notes from GT wine editor Max Vic, (03) 9650 1445 AVOCADO WITH CITRUS, TOAST AND LOCAL KELP Allen on what we’re drinking on the side. SALT, THE KETTLE BLACK There are now around 1.2 billion versions of avocado on toast across the globe, but this combination gets it right by playing it straight and simple. Half a perfectly ripe avocado (stone out, skin on) arrives with sourdough toast, a wedge of lime, and salt made with dehydrated kelp. It’s DIY made perfect with carefully sourced, top-notch ingredients. The Kettle Black, 50 Albert Rd, South Melbourne, Vic, (03) 9088 0721 WHAT WE’RE DRINKING Imagine stashing a case of booze in a time capsule that won’t be opened for another TOO MANY ITALIANS 50 years – a taster that tells a story of what AND ONLY ONE ASIAN, NORA STRACCIATELLA, we’re drinking right here, right now. What Sarin Rojanametin’s witty FERMENTED FENNEL, would you put in the box? On the following tribute to Carlton’s Italian food CHAMOMILE OIL, EMBLA culture might look like pesto Stracciatella – otherwise known pages are some of the drinks I’d choose. PHOTOGRAPHY JULIAN KINGMA (EMBLA), MARCEL AUCAR (CUMULUS INC, (CUMULUS AUCAR JULIAN KINGMA (EMBLA), MARCEL PHOTOGRAPHY REFTEL (NORA) & MARTIN JESSICA REFTEL EVANS KETTLE BLACK), pasta, but the pasta is actually as the super-creamy heart of any green papaya, and the pesto self-respecting burrata – combines a mix of roasted cashew nuts, with fermented fennel and the PROSECCO Tasmanian sparkling might well sator beans and pieces of aromatic, herbaceous note of be the quality pinnacle of fizzy wine production school prawn tossed with chamomile oil for a light and in Australia (and a good late-disgorged example sorrel oil and fermented garlic powder. It’s a clever trick that delicate left-of-centre winner. really deserves to be in the line-up, too), but the bub- File it under “shouldn’t work, succeeds on the strength of but does”. Embla, 122 Russell St, bly we’re drinking the most at the moment balance and flavour. Melbourne, Vic, (03) 9654 5923 is prosecco, both locally made and imported. Nora, 156 Elgin St, Carlton, Vic, (03) 9041 8644> 7 Laham nayyeh, Gerard’s Bistro It’s lamb rather than beef that makes the cut in this clever textural twist on a classic Lebanese tartare. Bundles of hand-chopped lamb and pickled radish, spiced up with fiery harissa and fragrant with preserved lime, arrive dotted on a crisp saj flatbread. Swirls of creamy cured yolk with a scatter of lemon balm bring the zing. Gerard’s Bistro, 14-15 James St, Fortitude Valley, Qld, (07) 3852 3822 FISH FINGERS WITH CHARRED TOAST, BODEGA On the menu since day one of service 10 years ago, Bodega’s signature dish sounds pretty straightforward on paper: fish, garlic, burnt toast. Veal sweetbread schnitty But it is truly more than sanga, Fleet the sum of its parts. Slices The perfect bar snack for a perfectly outré wine bar? It’d of kingfish on fingers have to involve something fried. It would want to be a of blackened toast with sandwich. There ought to be anchovies involved, possibly a confetti of cuttlefish ceviche, coriander, onion in a mayonnaise. And it’d need a clever twist. We give you and grated mojama come Fleet’s schnitzel sandwich: rounds of soft white bread together in a brilliantly enfolding hot, golden-crumbed veal sweetbreads and balanced mouthful a lick of anchovy mayo. Just add wine. Fleet, 2/16 The of flavour. Bodega, 216 Terrace, Brunswick Heads, NSW, (02) 6685 1363 Commonwealth St, Surry Hills, NSW, (02) 9212 7766 SPAGHETTI FRESCA WITH CLAMS AND SMOKED TOMATOES, TIPO 00 The world’s finest carbohydrate is magicked to a Platonic ideal with house-made spaghetti, clams, garlic and chilli. Then the Tipo kitchen takes it to a whole new level with the addition of smoked cherry tomatoes. Two words: pasta perfection. Tipo 00, 361 Little Bourke St, Melbourne, Vic, (03) 9942 3946> SINGLE-VINEYARD WINE In the old days, Australia’s most revered wines were multi-regional blends. Now terroir is king: fine-wine lovers care a lot about the precise patch of dirt where the grapes are grown, particularly if those grapes are of the pinot noir variety. PHOTOGRAPHY JULIAN KINGMA (TIPO WILLIAM MEPPEM (BODEGA), 00), PHOTOGRAPHY & WILLIAM MEPPEM (FLEET) BISTRO) AJ MOLLER (GERARD’S 8 GOURMETTRAVELLER.COM.AU 9 PRETZEL AND WHIPPED BOTTARGA, 10 WILLIAM ST Brown rice bowl, Chef Dan Pepperell may have Tricycle Café jumped ship to Hubert, but The brown rice bowl changes daily DOUBLE-BOILED his pretzel with bottarga and is always delicious – the Sri WALLABY TAIL SOUP, remains a stalwart on the Lankan chicken curry is a standout FLOWER DRUM 10 William St menu.